


...She and the Child...

by xtalmarie



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:15:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22428454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xtalmarie/pseuds/xtalmarie
Summary: A non-canon exploration of Jamie's life after Culloden...Upon returning to Lallybroch from Helwater, Jamie finds himself the Highland's Most Eligible Bachelor.  Jenny is determined to play matchmaker, and pushes every fertile female she can find in the direction of his bedchamber, but Jamie draws the line when she tries to set him up with Laoghaire MacKenzie.  After seventeen years of living as a ghost, he comes to the conclusion at last that, time and space be damned, if Claire had traversed time and found him once all those years ago, by God, he will defy every known law of the Universe itself to find her!  She and the child...
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser, Jamie Fraser/Jenny Fraser, Jamie Fraser/Laoghaire MacKenzie
Comments: 119
Kudos: 193





	1. A Truth Between Us

" _Laoghaire? Truly?_ " I was dumbstruck by her words. "NO. Janet. I'll no have it. I'll no have _her_ , widow that she is or no, bairns or no. She's provided for already at Balriggan; she's an estate to her name, she's no wi'out her share of suitors as it is. D'ye not _ken,_ who she is? What she did to us at Leoch? Claire told ye, right here in this very room. And ye'd have me _wed_ her? " I was livid. How could she take a mind to suggest _Laoghaire_ , of all women? 

Jenny set her face to stone, hands on her hips in that stance I'd seen so often... and so much more the often of late. She was set to fight. I didn't have the heart for it now. To be angry wi' her; to place myself at odds wi' her again. And so soon after the last one. _No time to dance around memories and secrets_ , I decided. When Jenny opened her mouth to shout me down, I held my hand up in resignation, and looked down to the floor. I clenched my fist once, halfway of course, being that the ring finger still didna bend at all... if only to remind her - and myself - of all that lay between Claire and me, that couldna be undone by time alone. Then I slowly looked back up to meet her eye.

"She cursed my wife, fer God's sake! Placed an evil ill-wish 'neath her pillow, where she slept beside me, and wished her _dead_! And I've a mind she did a fair bit more than that, when it comes to it. Laoghaire was the one who brought her the false message, to go to Geillis Duncan in Cranesmuir, which is how Claire came to be there when Geillis was arrested. And if that's the truth of it, she _meant_ for Claire to _burn_ , alongside Geillis! Claire never accused her outright of intending her to be arrested as well, but that girl was no innocent at seventeen. Curses, and plots, and... I'll no have her, Jenny. Not as wife, nor even as tenant. So don't try to have some other poor Lallybroch soul matched up wi' her, either. I'll have nothing to do wi’ the woman."

Jenny took a deep breath then, but I saw in the set of her shoulders that she'd not argue the point any further... today. Perhaps she _might_ have argued that all of that was long ago. Perhaps, that Laoghaire had seen enough punishment for her actions. That we _both_ had. 

She truly _was_ the Laird of Lallybroch, I suddenly realized. As much, if not moreso, than I had ever been. All she saw, was a widow with bairns to raise, twice left wi'out a father, and a brother in front of her who still grieved for his wife, gone now these 17 years. She saw a problem that was wi'in her power to remedy, a way to take care of the people she felt responsible for. I kent that she saw a ghost whenever she looked at me, a shell. I kent it myself, that I wasna a whole man any more. I hadna been whole since... since Culloden. Since I'd sent Claire, and our bairn, to _Frank_. To safety. Willie had come close... but no use dwelling on that thought now. He could never be truly mine... I shrugged the thought off as quickly as it had come. Jenny had tried to make me whole again, done her best, and then more, but surely by now she kent that only Claire could do that. And Claire _couldn't_ do that.

"Jamie, I just -" she began.

"- want me to be happy again. I ken it, Jenny. I just wish you'd accept that I canna marry again." I sighed, long and deep. "I will never love again, Jenny. That is my curse, for the wrongs I've done in this life, and the remembrance of the love I had wi' her, my only joy. But ‘tis a joy forever shrouded, in pain and emptiness. I won't marry for convenience, or practicality, or sentiment, or pity, or whatever other reasons you may contrive. I wish ye'd just let me be about it," I finished gruffly.

"Let ye be?" she countered. "Lord, man, if I let ye be, you'd be dead in a week! Ye have no concept of fear or restraint any more, no shame, no thought for what it would do to me and Ian if you died. You're a walking death wish, and I mean only to give you something to _live_ fer again!" I could see the fear in her eyes, the knowing that it was all in vain... that I was dead already. 

"I _meant_ to die, at Culloden, to save myself, and ye, and Ian, and well, everyone, from this. I kent I'd never be whole again. Not to say that I'm no grateful you fought to save me. I ken ye had to..." I touched her face softly with the back of my mangled hand. "But I canna be the man you thought you were saving." Jenny's face fell at this, and I saw tears glistening as understanding, acceptance, and finally, resignation turned the grief to numbness. She swallowed hard. The tears never fell.

"I have to go," I said softly, almost a whisper. 

" _Go_? Go _where_?" Jenny asked, bewildered. Now the look of stubborn defiance returned. "James Fraser, you answer me this instant! Go _where_?"

"I've got to try and find her, Jenny. I've got to find her, or die in the trying." I met her eyes again and saw the fear, the confusion, the desolation. It was time for the truth between us. "Claire. She... and the child." 


	2. What Lies Behind Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After holding his memories of Claire, and all her secrets, deep within himself all these years, Jamie finally opens up to Jenny and Ian. Once unleashed, the truth rushes out in a torrent he’s not sure he can control...

Jenny's face went ashen as she turned my words over in her head. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again, and stayed that way a few seconds, until her eyes narrowed and she breathed, "Claire?” Then with more volume, “Are ye daft, man? You cannae just go off and kill yerself for a broken heart! For the one thing, it's a mortal sin, and ye ken it weel! For another, I'll no have it! A fine thanks 'twould be for you to take the life I've fought sae hard to save, and toss it away like a clump o' sod, or pigs' muck!" She was angry again, practically screeching in her fear of what I’d meant by what I’d said.

She had been so angry, it had taken a half hour, Ian’s intervention, and three glasses of the good whisky to settle her enough to let me speak again where she might hear me. 

“I’m no about to try and kill myself, Janet,” I said, more kindly than I'd felt. “Ye’ll ken I never spoke of Claire after Culloden, until now... I couldna, because... because it was _my_ fault she was gone. Ye see, ‘twas myself that made her leave. I meant to die in the battle, and she... she was wi’ child again. My child, Jenny. We lost our daughter, Faith, and I would not lose another. So I sent her away... back. Back to where she came from... through the stones, the faerie circle at Craigh na Dun. I knew I’d never see them again, in this life. But I didna plan for it to take quite this long for me to die, aye?” I finished, twinkling my eye at her to soften the blow.

You could have popped a crabapple in Jenny’s open mouth, I thought, half-amused, as I watched her puzzle it out. A glance at Ian showed some surprise, but far less shock than I expected. As it was, Jenny recovered her voice first. 

“Stones? The faerie hill? You’re saying she was a faerie, all this time? Jamie, lad, you’re no makin’ sense!”

Ian seemed troubled, moreso than confused. “So she came from somewhere... else? Where? How?!” He seemed to carry a great air of... was it relief? and maybe sorrow? 

“Aye, man. Some _time_ else is more the way to explain it though. She was… born in a… different time, long after now, and while there are many things to tell of it, there’s not time for it all. And besides, it’s her story to tell. Not mine.” I took a deep breath and a deep drink from my glass, and continued. “She kent that Culloden would be lost, she kent the famines that would follow. She kent it, because it had already happened in her time; it was just a... a history lesson to her.” 

“You’re telling me,” Jenny had interjected, “that she came from the _future_?! How? How is that even possible? How would ye even come to believe a tale such as that, James Fraser? Why not just call her ‘witch’ and let it be?” I chuckled and sobbed simultaneously, recalling a conversation with Claire on that very topic immediately following her rescue. “We’d not judge ye - or her - for it, ye must ken that!” Jenny finished, a little more gently.

“Aye, I questioned it too, when she first told me, ye ken? ‘It would hae been much easier, had ye only been a witch.’ That’s what I said to her,” I said once I was reasonably sure no tears would fall. “It was right after Cranesmuir, when they nearly burned her for a witch. I thought maybe - _maybe_ that’s what she was, and damnit! I loved her so much I’d have accepted it, and happily lived the rest of my life under her enchantment!”

Both Jenny and Ian were leaning in, in rapt attention now. “Aye, lad; I wondered a few times myself, about her power over ye,” Ian said with a knowing look. “Then, I looked at my Jenny, and I kent that love - true love - is its own enchantment. And she was as much under your spell as you were hers, truth be told.” 

“Aye, weel, she told me then, and I didna know if I _could_ believe it. But she was so... sincere in the telling. Ye’ll ken what a terrible liar she was - _is_ ,” I smiled as I recalled how easy it was to read her thoughts. “I took a chance, and told her I’d believe her, whatever she told me. I wasna ready to hear some of the things she said, though. Like Culloden,” I went on.

“Ye’ll recall she was a widow when we marrit?” Both sister and best friend nodded. “Aye, weel, and if she was from another time, that meant her first husband wasna truly dead - only, not alive... yet. So. I felt it my duty to send her back to him; after all, she’d been trying to do so herself for many months at that point, and made quite the trouble of it in the process, at that.” At this, Jenny seemed surprised, but said nothing and nodded for me to continue.

“So. I took her. To the stones. I said I believed her, but I half expected to prove her wrong.”

“But she stayed, did she no?!” Jenny half-asked, half-exclaimed. “How would that prove anything, if she stayed?” Ever pragmatic, Jenny would not accept this unlikely truth on any other terms than full disclosure, it would seem. Then again, neither had I...

“Aye, she stayed. But not before I nearly shoved her through the stone myself. It was... terrifying. She touched the stone, and... she just faded from my sight, like a mist swallowing her whole. She was slipping right through my hands, and the look on her face was... it was horrible, Jenny. It looked as though she were frightened near to death, or in terrible pain, or...” I shook myself lightly, ending with a half-shrug of the shoulder, in that unconscious way I had of shaking off an unwanted thought or feeling.

“I pulled her back then. I couldna let her go, seeing that look on her face. But it was wrong of me, to choose for her. So. I said my farewell, and left her there to make her own choice after that. Maybe it was love of me, maybe it was fear of going through again, but she chose to stay. Wi’ me.” I had looked down then, swallowing back a tear as I remembered how hard it had been to walk away and let her go; I had prayed for the strength to follow through, the whole two-day ride there, and that whole interminable, damnable walk down the hill to the abandoned cottage. Tears of remembered joy welled up then, recalling also the moment I’d discovered that _I_ had been her choice. "That was when we came to Lallybroch, ye ken?" I continued, sniffling lightly. “I didna want to hope yet that she loved me, though it meant at the least, that she'd _chosen_ me, and I kent well enough that I loved her; I had since the beginning.” _And I_ will _love her, for the rest of my life_ , I finished, to myself. 

“Aye, man, she loved ye then; we kent it no sooner as we’d met her,” Ian said softly, reaching out a hand to me; I squeezed it, then let it drop gently. “No one who saw the way she looked at ye could say otherwise.”

I smiled, remembering. “Aye. I came round to the truth of it shortly. 'Twas here, at Lallybroch, where she first said she loved me, ye ken? Although to be fair, it was the first I’d told her as weel. I think we were... afraid to be the first to say it, in case the other didn’t feel the same,” I mused. “Seems a bit thick-heided, considering all we’d been through together already at that point. Randall, Leoch, Laoghaire, Cranesmuir... I loved her more than my own life, but it’s only just occurred to me that she had to have loved me more than hers, to stay...”

The emptiness stole back in, my constant companion since that cursed day. While it felt good and _right_ to be speaking her name again after so many years had passed, the despair of living wi'out her hung heavy over me, like the cloak of a _tannasg_ , dragging me down to the underworld. “ _I_ made her go, Jenny, the day of the battle,” I whispered, half sobbing. “For the bairn. And I have had to live all this time, not knowing if I sent them on to safety - back to her own time - or sent them perhaps, to some other time. Or... if I sent them both to their deaths,” I finished softly. Jenny truly saw me then, as I stood before her - the ghost of a man I'd become wi' such a burden on my soul. She saw, and finally understood the unspeakable agony of that burden, why I couldna bear to share it wi' her all this time. And in the honesty of my grief, she, too, believed.


	3. The Stones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Jenny and Ian’s help, Jamie attempts to travel through the stones again to find Claire, and recounts the last time he tried.

Jenny and Ian had accompanied me to Craigh na Dun, come spring, as much good as that had done me. Following that fateful Hogmanay, we’d spent the winter planning and categorizing and analyzing everything I knew about the stones and Claire’s experiences with them, time and again. We recalled every song the bards had sung, of the faerie hills, of the Wife of Balnain, of the Auld Folk; various ways the travelers had left... and returned. 

Confronted with the obvious connections between superstition, folklore, and Claire's own story, they were forced to see many of their own memories of Claire in an entirely new light, as I had when first I learned the truth. I did share some of her stories with them, as it was impossible not to, but I tried to respect her privacy when it came to some matters, such as her harrowing experiences in the World War, as she had called it. Sufficient to explain that she'd served in the British Army as a Combat Nurse, had seen her share of death and destruction, and leave it at that. They were astounded by the thought of women having such a wide array of choices in the future, and especially disturbed by the idea of putting women in the line of danger, actually _serving_ in the military. I wasn't quite sure why it hadn't shocked me so at the time she told me; perhaps it had been overshadowed by the enormity of the whole of the truth being poured out at once, as it was. But then, I'd always seen Claire as something... _more_ than most women, much as I had Jenny. There are some women - nay, some _people_ \- you meet in life that you just immediately ken are capable of _anything_ they put their mind to. My Sassenach was one of them. 

Spring. We had waited until Beltane to attempt it, following the old lore about the Fire and Sun feast days, especially considering Claire had (or had nearly) traveled so near to Beltane or Samhain all three times. I had inquired in the village about the possibility of any local druids or others performing rituals near the stones as she had described, but if there were, they were verra secretive indeed in the present. Instead, taking the idea from some of the songs and stories, I had asked a priest come bless the stones, and bless me on my journey; for all the poor man’s confusion at what must have appeared to be an extreme case of Highland farmfolk superstition, he had come along and done our bidding... for a generous donation to his parish, of course. In the end, I had touched the stone, and walked away still very much in my own time; the same as the last time. 

_It had been shortly after I had learned to walk again, when Jenny had healed the bayonet gash in my leg. Randall's parting gift, as it were... It should hae been fatal. Right then, for the thousandth time, I wished fervently that it had been. But no, I surmised, it wasna mine to choose my time, as I had hoped for so many times after Culloden and o'er the many years since. I supposed I'd not be allowed that particular indulgence now, either; at least not wi'out committing that sin for which there can be no indulgence... Aye, I'd considered that many a time as weel, but always somehow managed to come back from the dark promise of that thought, by some grace._

__

__

_As soon as I had mended enough to get back on a horse, I'd slipped out o' the house in the early pre-dawn, saddled up and headed out, sometime mid-October. I'd ridden as hard as I could to get there, but it had taken several days, injury and pain notwithstanding. I knew she'd come through at Beltane, that it had been close to Beltane again when she'd gone. And it had been Samhain the first time I'd tried to make her go back._

_The stones had loomed ahead, like guardians of some ancient sepulchre, the occupants thereof forgotten by time itself. I had listened for the buzzing she described, but heard nothing. I'd sunk to my knees and prayed to God to let me find her. I'd drawn my dirk and traced the purple 'C' beneath my thumb with the tip, reopening the wound and letting my blood drip on the stone, in case some kind of blood sacrifice were required by whatever powers hid wi'in the place._

_I had held the thought of her - her lovely, perfect face with her wild curls flying about on the breeze, whisky eyes looking at me in love and fear and longing as she ran to the stones that day - in my mind as I stepped forward and placed both hands upon the stone._

_Nothing._

_Nothing, like the pit of emptiness gnawing at my soul. Nothing, like my will to breathe, to wake, to truly _live_. Only grace had kept me breathing, eating, waking, sleeping. Living. And the one thought:_ Lord, that she may be safe. She and the child.

It was good that the priest had gone before I attempted to touch the stone. There were only Ian and Jenny to see me rage about the hilltop, vainly trying to topple the stones, and then, exhausted, quietly fall to pieces in a heap at the base of the split monolith. 

I couldna bear the touch of another hand for some number of hours then, nor could I find the strength to move or get up, or do anything beyond breathe. And remember. And remember I did, for my heart was a raw, open wound, rent in two as plainly as the dead stone looming o'er me. Jenny had gone down to the ruined cottage, even more o'ergrown with nearly two decades gone by. Ian had made himself invisible, undoubtedly watching for signs I'd do something irrevocably stupid, but I couldna see nor hear him, so I went about my business of stitching the halves of my heart back together wi' my memories, as if he weren't there. 


	4. Witch Hunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie returns with Ian and Jenny to Lallybroch the next day, and begins to set his affairs in order. Jenny and Ian hope beyond hope that he's done trying to find Claire, but Jamie has a few more ideas... starting with the life and timeS of the witch, Geillis Duncan...

Some months later, I found myself at Glen Rowan Cross, rummaging through what little remained of Dougal MacKenzie's Jacobite stores. If there was one thing I knew about the world, and how it works, it was that there's usually more than one way to skin a coney. There _must_ be another way to slip between time, besides the stones. I was determined to find it, and find her. _Lord, that they may be safe. She and the child._

Finding out all I could about Geillis Duncan was the first step. She, being the only other time traveler we knew of, as well as being a witch- of a sort- was a better starting place than none at all. Claire had long ago mentioned seeing a witch's grimoire in Geillis' upper room, among other tomes. A quick survey of the fiscal's old home in Cranesmuir had turned up nothing beyond a rumor that my uncle had cleared the place of her belongings after her death. From there I had ridden to Beannachd, which had similarly revealed no secret stash of witchcraft lore or mementos. Eighteen years was a long time, and a long time. It was hard to see the state of things in the MacKenzie lands, the evidence of the clearances following Culloden. So many dead- murdered, in truth- and those who survived, gone into hiding or off to the Colonies. I heard that Letitia had escaped with my young cousin Hamish, who was now grown and doing well for himself in His Majesty's service; this brought me some small comfort.

_I should have sent her to the Colonies while it was still possible,_ I admonished myself for the thousandth time. _Or back to Lallybroch with Fergus, or into hiding in the Isles... anywhere but back through those cursed stones. At least then I'd have had the_ possibility _of reuniting with her when I'd survived, against all odds. If only I'd thought to send Murtagh wi' her, to keep her safe, and take her to the stones only if the need arose... perhaps they'd both still be here..._ I heaved a sigh and moved on from that futile regret. I kent weel enough from trying to change the future that we were as powerless to change the past. "Treat the patient in front of you," as Claire had always said; it applied to time as well as healing. What _I_ wanted to do, though, was neither changing past nor future- I wanted to slip between what was and what *might* be, and create my own destiny. _Our_ destiny.

My memories of what Claire had told me about Geillis were shrouded by the sheer enormity of all that had been happening then - trying to accept and understand the truth of her traveling through the stones from the future, my experiences at (and after) Wentworth... Paris... it was no wonder some details were unclear. But after a time, it had come to me that she'd mentioned Glen Rowan Cross, and meeting Dougal there when he'd told her of my capture. So, with nothing more than that, I'd made my way there, with little expectation of what I'd find.

"Uncle Jamie, come get a keek at this!" An unmistakably adolescent male voice had called out to me, practically squeaking on the word "uncle" and croaking its way to a ridiculous bass on the last word. Ian couldna be spared from the harvest, and so had sent his namesake along wi' me. As I came round the corner, young Ian came into view, arm waving wildly at me. I smiled wi' a rush of fondness for the lad, who returned the sentiment with one bordering on adoration. "Och, there ye are, Uncle- come see!" he beckoned giddily. 

I covered the corridor in three or four long strides, not wanting to actually appear to be hurrying, but wanting to hurry, nonetheless. When I passed the third column, I looked around behind it where young Ian had stepped out of sight... but he wasna there. I looked back in confusion at the columns I'd just passed, thinking I'd misjudged the distance, and yet knowing I had not. This was the last column in the corridor, and I was sure this was the one he had been standing beside when he beckoned. They were large, about 2 feet square, and set close to the stone wall, but far enough away that it seemed there might be space enough for a body to slip between, at that... 


End file.
